Digital Trends Live: Facebook’s news tab, TikTok investigated, and more

By Todd Werkhoven October 25, 2019

On this episode of Digital Trends Live, hosts Greg Nibler and Drew Prindle dig into the biggest-trending tech stories of the day, including Facebook’s new “news” tab, senators’ investigation of TikTok, lasers that shoot down drones, news that HBO subscribers may get HBO MAX free next year, and more.

We then go to Ken Yeung, technology editor at Flipboard, for our weekly Tech Briefs segment, where we recap the biggest tech stories of the past week, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Libra testimony and more.

Keely Wachs, head of impact and sustainability at Zume, later discusses a partnership with Pizza Hut and its new eco-friendly pizza box.

Jeremy Kaplan, editor-in-chief at Digital Trends, then joins us from New York to talk about the IBM Food Trust, and how it uses blockchain to improve seafood sustainability.

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Topics

Todd Werkhoven's work can be read at numerous publications and he co-authored a personal finance book called "Zombie…

Gaming

TikTok is launching a dedicated gaming channel

TikTok is moving further into the games industry by launching its own dedicated gaming channel.

According to a report from Financial Times, the channel will allow TikTok users to access games by pressing a tab on the ByteDance-owned social media platform's homepage. Four people familiar with the matter said that the channel will feature a variety of mobile games — some of which the company already developed — with ads and additional content that users can purchase.

Social Media

TikTok pivots to photos while its competitors are still chasing its viral videos

Smartphone with TikTok's Photo Mode all on a white background.

TikTok's competitors have been all over the news recently for essentially copying the short-form video sharing app's most successful moves. But while everyone else is pivoting to video, TikTok is now taking swings in the other direction: photos.

On Thursday, TikTok announced a slew of new editing and creation features, but the one tool that caught our eye was Photo Mode. Because the image that TikTok shared in its official announcement depicted a photo carousel-style image post that looks a lot like Instagram.

Social Media

New feature shows that even Twitter wants to be like TikTok now

Twitter's new full screen feature for videos on the mobile app.

Is TikTok the new queen bee of social media? It appears so as even Twitter couldn't resist copying TikTok. Twitter's latest feature announcement seems to be yet another indication that the viral video app sensation is clearly the new leader among its peers. After all, TikTok is setting trends and its competitors are all following them.

On Thursday, Twitter announced two new video-focused features for its app and one of those features bears a strong resemblance to TikTok. That feature (known as the "immersive media viewer") allows users to open videos in a vertical "full-screen mode" -- just like TikTok -- and continue to view more videos by swiping up (also just like TikTok).